Archive: Posts about Politics
October 10th, 2008, 3 Comments »
Back in August, I mentioned the Conservative government’s cuts to arts programs, and their controversial grab for greater control over funding for film and TV production.
In roughly $5 billion worth of programs spending, Prime Minister Harper’s $45 million cuts feels like a rounding error. Did they hope to make the cuts quietly, or make a bold statement about tightening belts and, maybe, cultural funding? I’m not sure, but it feels like the issue broke the wrong way. Arts funding became an unexpectedly prominent issue in the campaign, providing fodder for the opposition Plus, the move may have provoked some previously apathetic non-voters to action.
As the Globe and Mail reports, Prime Minister Harper has repealed the problematic clause in Bill C-10. It feels like damage control:
The Conservative Leader’s about-face comes as Tory hopes of a majority fade, and support for the party is sagging in the crucial battlegrounds of Quebec and Ontario.
The move appears to be aimed at appeasing voters incensed at the provision in C-10, and at the nearly $45-million in recent cuts to a swath of other arts and culture programs.
The Globe also notes that all four opposition parties have promised to reinstate the $45 million in cuts.
3 Comments »
October 9th, 2008, 10 Comments »
I’m a big fan of Wordle. Everybody likes pretty tag clouds, but until recently, I’ve had no practical use for the tool.
What with the forthcoming election and all, and being in marketing, I thought it might be interesting to use Wordle to distill each of the four national parties’ websites into a tag cloud. The cloud would reflect the terms that the party uses most frequently on their English-language websites. With an assist from Ask Metafilter, I got them done. I’ll explain a little more about how after the clouds.
As usual, click for larger versions:
What Conclusions Can We Draw?
That’s more a question for you than me, as I haven’t spent much time trying to grok what these clouds tell us (yes, I used ‘grok’). What jumps out at you?
How Did We Make Them?
First, I grabbed a complete copy of each party’s website. I just stuck with HTML files, so if a party hosts a lot of PDFs with unique content, then that’s not reflected. The sites, of course, ended up being different sizes, and I’m relying on my site-copying software, so I can’t be certain I got all the pages.
Then we concatenated each set of HTML files into one gigantic file. Using some scripty-magic, we generated the top 100 or 250 words, each appearing as many times as they appear in the original site.
I went through each of these to clean out most or all of the leftover HTML code, navigational terms like ‘email’ or ‘newsletter’ and French words. The French is why we used 250 words in some cases. For some sites, I downloaded both the French and English version of the site, so I needed to remove the French. By working with a 250 word file, I was able to clean out the French and still have a sizable database of words.
In short, it’s somewhat unscientific, but I’m optimistic that the clouds represent a reasonably fair reflection of each site’s top content. If anyone wants to work with the content I copied, I’m happy to share it. I’m not going to publish the complete sites here, though, as I expect that would constitute a copyright violation.
10 Comments »
October 6th, 2008, 9 Comments »
Yesterday I was talking to somebody about voting. She asked, and I told her (as I told you) for whom I planned to vote.
She mentioned that her parents always kept their voting decisions a secret, possibly even from each other. I have a vague memory of my parents not discussing who they voted for either. Am I making this up, or was there a prevailing opinion in their generation that you didn’t disclose for whom you cast your ballot?
The essence of this notion seems to be (or have been) “your vote is nobody’s business but your own”. That’s true, and I suppose it was designed, in a Miss Manners kind of way, to avoid heated conflict in otherwise civil conversation. However, times and social norms change.
Plus, if you care about politics and your choice, I’d imagine that you’d want to try to convince other people of your position. And how can you do that without disclosing who you’re planning to support?
Do you discuss who you’re voting for among your family and friends? If not, why not?
9 Comments »
October 4th, 2008, 8 Comments »
I voted today. Unfortunately, I’m going to be in the US on October 14. I voted for the Green Party, as I have done so in the last two (maybe three?) elections. For pretty much the same reasons. I have no expectation that my candidate will win, but I believe in supporting the party whose values most closely align with my own.
I’m not a big fan of strategic voting. Even if I was, I’m pretty sure that the Conservative candidate in Victoria has about as much chance as winning as, say, the Christian Heritage candidate. Er, that’s not technically accurate, but Victoria hasn’t elected a Tory since 1988. Besides, VoteForEnvironment suggests that I can take my pick.
Party or Person?
When voting, how much consideration do you give to your local candidate and how much do you give to the national party? I’ve asked this question before, and some thoughtful discussion resulted. Four years later, I can’t think of a good reason not to ask it again.
As I indicated, my choice skews heavily toward the party. Why?
- I care more about national policy than local issues. I’m totally ambivalent about how my MP represents Victoria in Ottawa.
- It’s kind of by default. I lived in Vancouver for many years. Can I describe even one of Hedy Fry’s accomplishments as my MP? Can you? I’m no political news junkie, but I think I’ve been as informed and well-read as the average Vancouverite over the past decade. It’s much easier for me to identify with a national party that holds particular values and positions, as opposed to my local MP whose accomplishments and goals I can’t imagine.
My perception of the party leader–of their competency and character–matters as well. Less than the party, but more than the local candidate.
How about you? Do you vote for the candidate or the party?
UPDATE: On a vaguely-related note, somebody sent me this video featuring local Vancouver candidates talking about their parties’ platforms on climate change.
UPDATE #2: Speaking of videos, I love the aesthetics of this one (thought its message could be clearer).
8 Comments »
October 3rd, 2008, 9 Comments »
I’m no economist. In fact, I don’t deserve to live in the same town as the guy who hands out the ‘economist’ name tags. With that in mind, I have two ill-informed reactions to today’s signing of the US $700 million billion (whoops, wishing thinking) bailout bill into law:
- For many, many years, Wall Street demanded and received decreased regulation. They repeatedly called for less and less government intervention into the free market. Now, having royally screwed the pooch in this unregulated atmosphere, they get saved by what? Government intervention. Does anybody else find this repellent?
- I have yet to hear a clearly articulated explanation of the alternative outcome–no bailout–for the average American (not to mention the average Canadian). Yes, it’ll be bad news, but I have no sense of how bad. And, you know, I’ve been paying attention.
It must be pretty weird to live in the US these days. On top of impending (and possibly averted) economic disaster, you’re living through one of the weirdest presidential elections in history. I watched some of the US vice-presidential debate last night (and some of the Canadian leadership debate and some of the hockey game), and I continue to be shocked that Governor Palin might one day run this country. If Americans put Senator McCain and Governor Palin in the Whitehouse, they get the governance they deserve.
Here are two tangential links that political junkies have probably already seen: the Sarah Palin debate flow chart, and the hilarious earmarks and pork attached to the bailout bill.
Do we do this–attach all sorts of irrelevant extras to legislation–in Canada? I’m embarrassed that I don’t know.
9 Comments »
September 19th, 2008, 1 Comment »
I guess this is technically a client plug. But if I hadn’t written a guest post on it over at the CI Sense blog, I’d have written it here. We generated some reports for trademark filings associated with the American presidential candidates. I went through them and pulled out 21 of the weirdest products and slogans. Here’s a sampling:
My favourite is probably all of the incredibly lame versions of what ‘O.B.A.M.A.’ stands for.
1 Comment »
September 17th, 2008, 6 Comments »
Via Sue, I read this CBC article about Prime Minister Harper’s plan to extend employment insurance benefits to self-employed Canadians like myself:
At Eurospa in Ottawa’s east end, the Conservative leader announced that his party will give self-employed Canadians the chance to opt in to the employment insurance system, providing them with parental leave and other EI benefits…
The self-employed business owners who choose to participate could collect employment insurance or parental benefits once they had worked enough hours to qualify, even if their business collapsed.
The article points out that this is a program aimed directly at professional women, a demographic that the Conservatives struggle to reach. After all, they did announce the thing in a spa. I wonder if the Prime Minister got his toes painted.
Sue makes some salient points in critiquing the plan:
If optional, how would you control the quality of the business owners paying into the plan. You’re much more likely to see “marginally successful” business owners paying in, because they’re the ones who expect to have to collect. That’s not going to work, because you will have far too many outputs to cover from the inputs.
If the plan is mandatory, you’re basically taxing all the successful entrepreneurs to support the unsuccessful ones. Um ex-squeeze me? Not over my dead body!! As a successful OR unsuccessful entrepreneur, a mandatory EI program leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
I agree with Sue about the kinds of business which are likeliest to opt in. It’s hard to imagine how the plan will pay for itself in the long run.
I hope the plan remains optional (that’s how it sounds from the article), because otherwise it’s essentially a tax on the small business owner. When you become self-employed, you adopt greater risk in order to potentially reap greater reward. I’m comfortable with that, and don’t need my government to soften the blow should my business fail.
That said, I do think extending paid family leave to the self-employed is a good move. There are plenty of proven social benefits from such a program that extend beyond the individual.
What do you think?
6 Comments »
September 10th, 2008, 5 Comments »
As you may have heard, everybody involved in the federal leadership debates did a flip-flop, and agreed to include Green Party leader Elizabeth May in the debate. The rationales seem, well, peculiar:
Layton, who faced protesters at an Ontario campaign event on Wednesday, conceded the issue had become a “distraction,” and said he did not want to continue “debating about the debate” until the election. “I have only one condition for this debate, and that is that the prime minister is there, because I want to debate the issues with him,” Layton said.
Kory Teneycke, Harper’s director of communications, confirmed Harper had also changed his mind, telling reporters that while the Conservatives still objected to May’s participation on principle, he would no longer oppose May’s inclusion. “We don’t think she should be there, but if the NDP have decided they’re changing their position, we will not stand alone,” he said. In an interview with CBC News, Tory campaign co-chairman David Emerson said the reversal was a case of the prime minister “reacting to changing circumstances.”
May says that “tens of thousands of Canadians came to her defence, with some staging protests or telephoning the TV networks in charge of the debates”. Really? What evidence was there of a protest of this scope? I joined a Facebook group (that was the vast extent of my public dissent), and it only has 209 members. Ah, hang on, clearly I joined the wrong group. This one has 6007 members, which is pretty good for being only a few days old.
Still, you’ve got to hand it to Mr. Layton and Prime Minister Harper–way to have the courage of your convictions.
On a related note, the UBC School of Journalism created NetPrimeMinister.ca, a Netvibes-powered aggregator of social media news and commentary about the election. They asked for my feedback, so my main complaint would be the lack of RSS feeds. Obviously Netvibes doesn’t want you to consume information that way, but it’s too bad that we can’t grab, say, a mega-feed for the entire site. Then you could filter it for mentions of your local candidate, a particular issue like ‘net neutrality’ or whatever.
5 Comments »
September 5th, 2008, 11 Comments »
We started receiving these a couple of years ago. When we lived in Yaletown, I think they came from the NDP. Over the past week, we’ve received two from Conservative MPs Jay Hill and Ed Fast (do Tory MPs only get issued two syllables for their names?).
If you haven’t gotten these, they’re cheap-and-cheerful fliers (the graphic design work is sophmoric) focusing on a particular issue. They feature ridiculously heightened language (”many thugs, hoodlums and organized crime rings view these same cars as easy cash”) and a ballot, asking you to pick a party leader based on the issue. As you can see if you look at the larger version, these fliers ask “who do you think is on the right track on crime?” You fill in your details and send them back to ‘CRG-Government Caucus Services’.
I confess to being rather baffled by this particular direct marketing practice. I have a bunch of questions:
- Do politicos have a particular name for this kind of direct mail piece?
- Why does it originate from seemingly random Members of Parliament? I live in neither Peace River or Abbotsford–the two constituencies Mr. Hill and Mr. Fast represent.
- This isn’t, in any scientific way, an actual poll or survey. These fliers feature specific criticism of the Liberals and prominent photos of Prime Minister Harper. Are they just trying to collect my name, contact details and an issue about which I care, so that they can follow up with more targeted mail? That seems to be the case.
- Why is the execution so crappy? Because the parties are distributing millions of these around the country, in a kind of giant fishing expedition for more detailed information?
To me, these fliers have always seemed silly and wasteful. The rate of return must be abysmally low, and skews to the kind of people who have the time and inclination to complete and return the form. I’m guessing that that’s older supporters of the featured party.
Can some clueful, politically-minded sort explain the rationale and results associated with this old-school marketing?
UPDATE: This is why I ask questions around here–I tend to get fast and accurate answers from you, my dear readers. Wandering Coyote pointed me to his own partisan writings on the topic, as well as a Times Colonist article about these so-called ‘ten percenters’.
UPDATE #2: The Hill Times explains precisely what these fliers are:
The House spends about $7.8-million a year on printing services for MPs. MPs send out Householders four times a year into their constituencies. But they can also send an unlimited amount of “Ten Percenters,” or flyers to households across the country up to 10 per cent of their voters.
They are single page photocopied black and white flyers that the House Board of Internal Economy allows MPs to send to constituents in their own riding or in any other riding. Each Ten Percenter must be 50 per cent different from each other and, according to the Member’s Manual of Allowances and Services the MP’s name “must appear prominently on all Ten Percenters.” Once a month, however, MPs can participate in a “regrouping” where any number of MPs from the same party can send the same Ten Percenter to households anywhere in the country. The total number of Ten Percenters are not allowed to exceed 10 per cent of voters in each of the members participating in the regrouping and are coordinated through the parties whips’ offices.
11 Comments »
September 2nd, 2008, 5 Comments »
As you probably read, some political news emerged over the weekend. First, the word on the street is that the next federal election will be October 14:
The prime minister will declare that, after having met with all three opposition leaders over the last few days, he no longer has the confidence of Parliament, the sources said. As per tradition, it will then be up to Jean to decide whether to dissolve Parliament and set the election date.
I must register to vote here in Victoria.
In other news, the Green Party, in a rather backhanded fashion, acquired its first Member of Parliament. MP for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country Blair Wilson got bounced from the Liberals last year:
Green party Leader Elizabeth May introduced Wilson at a news conference Saturday morning in Ottawa, just a week after he approached the party.
“It felt like coming home,” Wilson said Saturday.
I know very little about him, but I’ve heard some fairly unflattering things about Blair Wilson. Regardless, I’m hopeful that this means that the Greens will get a voice in the TV debates in the upcoming election. They were denied by the broadcasters in the past because they’d never had a sitting MP.
I observed to somebody over the weekend that, in the event that the Green Party leader gets to participate in the debate, it’d be a bit of a pity. Elizabeth May strikes me as kind of a nerd. But, then, looking at our current crop of party leaders, they’re a pretty nerdy bunch.
In sharp contrast, that American election just gets more and more fascinating. It’s the best reality TV I’ve seen in years.
5 Comments »
